The most common family names in UK

More than 90% of the 45,602 surnames in the dictionary are native to Britain and Ireland.

There are almost 20,000 main entries, of which about 50% are locative names, like Leicester, Sutton and Green. About 23% are relationship names, like Dawson, Phelps and Edrich. About 19% are nicknames, like Fox, Longbones, Mantel and Goodfellow.

About 8% are occupational or status names, like Tanner, Webster and Franklin.

The most common surnames include: Smith (more than 400,000 bearers in 1881, 500,000 today); Jones (more than 300,000 in 1881; currently 400,000); Williams ( just over 200,000 in 1881, nearly 300,000 now); Brown and Taylor (both just under 200,000 in 1881, now over 250,000); Johnson ( just over 100,000 in 1881, now more than 150,000) and Lee ( just under 50,000 in 1881, now nearly 84,000).

As the population grows, common surnames are getting even more widespread. Sometimes this is because a recent immigrant surname has taken an English surname form. The growth in the numbers of people called Lee since 1881 is partly because of the arrival in English ports of Chinese migrants called Li or Lui.